A mysterious telegram sends Amy and Dan Cahill off to Russia, where they search for a treasure stolen by the Nazis, the truth about the end of the Romanov dynasty, and information about the death of their parents.

Edgar, an eleven-year-old orphan, finds a book that reveals significant secrets about Atherton, the strictly divided world on which he lives, even as geological changes threaten to shift the power structure that allows an elite few to live off the labor of others.